By: AIF Staff
Kettering, OH – Earlier this week, former Speaker of the House and American Idea Foundation President Paul Ryan visited Brigid’s Path, the first in-patient, newborn recovery center in Ohio. Caring for newborns since 2017, Brigid’s Path provides around-the-clock care for babies who were born exposed to addictive substances.
Joining Ryan were Ohio Representatives Mike Turner (OH-10) and Brad Wenstrup (OH-2), Kettering Mayor Peggy Lehner, and community partners from around Dayton, all of whom are supportive of Brigid’s Path’s efforts to stem the rising tide of opioid addiction. The legislators toured the medical recovery facility, participated in a roundtable with mothers and their babies who received treatment at Brigid’s Path, and spoke with medical professionals about the organization’s approach to nursing newborns back to health.
Following the visit, Speaker Ryan shared the following reflections on Brigid’s Path:
“The work being done by Brigid’s Path is awesome, effective, and necessary. Every child in America should be given the chance to lead a healthy life, and that’s what Brigid’s Path is providing to these newborns. The opioid epidemic – and substance abuse generally – doesn’t discriminate based on age, geography, race, class, religion, or any other characteristic. It impacts every community in America and to effectively reduce the scourge of addiction, we are going to need innovative and committed groups like Brigid’s Path on the front-lines.
“Brigid’s Path meets these mothers and their babies where they are. Brigid’s Path is literally there for these babies on Day 1. They are treating these mothers and their babies, often at their most vulnerable moments, with compassion, love, and cutting-edge health care. The work they do in the first weeks of a baby’s life will help that child for years to come, so their impact is profound. I was so impressed to see the dedication of their staff and volunteers and the support for Brigid’s Path from local legislators and the wider Dayton community.
WHIO covered Speaker Ryan’s reactions to the visit and the Dayton Daily News reported on the event, saying in part:
“Legislators joined former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan at Brigid’s Path on Wednesday as Ryan’s American Idea Foundation donated $50,000 to the newborn recovery center and visitors learned more about the center’s work at a roundtable with staff members.
“Having Paul Ryan look nationally for models and to find one right here is certainly a credit to our community,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton.
Ryan noted Turner’s support for the passing of the Caring Recovery for Infants and Babies Act, or CRIB Act. The act passed in 2018 and allowed Medicaid to cover certain health care services provided to infants in residential pediatric recovery facilities and hospitals. Centers like Brigid’s Path were previously not eligible to receive Medicaid reimbursement.
“I’m going across America looking for really successful poverty-fighting programs that can be measured and scaled and replicated across the country,” Ryan said. “So I’m here in Kettering to learn about Brigid’s Path, which is doing enormous work in making a difference in babies who are born with addictions….”
“What a beautiful thing to see people stepping up and doing this on their own and then working with government entities so that we have success,” said U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Cincinnati, on Wednesday.
The American Idea Foundation learned of Brigid’s Path through the Stand Together Foundation, a nonprofit that supports other entities that address poverty, Ryan said. The foundation also hopes to help replicate what Brigid’s Path is doing.
“We see here a program that has already proven to work, and what we want to do is do more measurement of what Brigid’s Path does and how it succeeds, so that we can track that progress and then tell the story so that we can replicate the success,” Ryan said.
Brigid’s Path is one of 7 non-profits from around the country that Ryan’s American Idea Foundation will be providing financial support and other assistance to in 2023.